Credit: Stuart Cahill

BROSSARD, Que. — While the Montreal Canadiens had pretty much a full practice today, the Bruins opted for a very optional session at the Bell Sports Complex, the Habs' state-of-the-art practice facility just outside Montreal.

However, practice or no practice, the Bruins know they have to be better than they were in their 4-2 loss in Game 3 last night. Not only do they have to find a way to get pucks to the net, they cannot make the same mistakes as they did on Tuesday, leaving Canadiens wide open for stretch passes, especially in the early going.

"We’re a group that’s confident but we also have guys right now that are a little frustrated at themselves; they know they have to be better," said coach Claude Julien. "They’re going to be better tomorrow, that’s the confidence we have in our group and the way we’ve been in the past. And you’ve got to rely on those guys to come up tomorrow and play the kind of game they can. It’s a 2-1 series, it’s not the end of the world here. We’ve just got to battle back. There’s no reason to panic. We haven’t in the past and we’re not about to panic now."

The only skaters for the Bruins were defensemen Matt Bartkowski, Dennis Seidenberg and Corey Potter along with forwards Justin Florek, Jordan Caron, Shawn Thornton and Gregory Campbell with goalie Chad Johnson.

There aren't many big personnel moves they could make. Bartkowski could go back in for Andrej Meszaros, who got his shot through for Jarome Iginla's tipped goal late in the game but also had his own off-balance shot blocked and sent back for Dale Weise's breakaway goal that made it 3-0. Florek could go back in for Caron, who had some trouble getting pucks out of the zone.

Other than that, the B's simply have to be better — and smarter.

"It's just awareness, the sharpness of our guys," said Julien. "You look at the goals, it's a lack of awareness. Guys are left alone, guys behind our D and those kind of things. It is correctable, but we need to be sharper in being able to find these guys."

Now, down 2-1, the B's face a crucial Game 4 tomorrow night. They don't want to be down 3-1 heading back to Boston.

"It's about being poised, but urgency has to be a part of your game at all times, whether it's Game 1 or Game 7," said Campbell. ...

Neither Julien nor GM Peter Chiarelli made a big deal about P.K. Subban knocking the goal off its moorings with about 10 seconds left in the game. A penalty shot could have been awarded but the refs viewed it as accidental.

“Calls get missed. And they can say the same thing about stuff that our guys do," said Chiarelli. "To me it looked like he knocked it off. But for every person that says he knocked it you could get another person that says he didn’t purposely knock it off.”

Said Julien: "This is all stuff that we can’t control. Referees make those calls and you move forward. I’m going to be honest with you, if we rely on the referees to give us the breaks then we certainly don’t have our focus in the right place. We need to make our own breaks. We have to look at ourselves and say, ‘Listen, did we play well enough yesterday to win that game?’ We didn’t.

"So we can look at all this little stuff on the side and it’s something that we don’t control and complain about it, that’s not what we do. We have to be honest here and tell ourselves we need to be better.”